Here’s the story...

Ben Fiedler (Daryl Sabara) is a Jewish boy rapidly approaching one of the biggest moments in his young life, the bar-mitzvah.  While Ben doesn’t quite know what he wants from the event, his successful father Adam (Jeremy Piven) is determined to give his son the biggest and best bar-mitzvah money can buy and in the process outdo one of his competitive colleagues, Arnie Stein (Larry Miller).

As the plans for the event get more and more over-the-top, Ben becomes a little overwhelmed and is desperate to throw a spanner in the works.  He decides the best way to do this is by inviting his estranged hippie grandfather Irwin (Garry Marshall) to the event early, knowing it will cause his father significant grief.  When Irwin does arrive, it forces Adam to deal with unresolved issues both with his father, and his past.

As I mentioned earlier, Keeping Up With The Steins is nowhere near as brash and silly as I anticipated.  It really is a down to earth family film that deals with a young boy’s anxiousness about growing up and his Dad’s unsettled history with his own father.  And while this grounds the film and helps to make it make it more endearing than I expected, there are still problems with what we see on screen and unfortunately they’re pretty major.   

You see, for a coming of age story, Keeping Up With The Steins really isn’t that interesting.  And as a comedy, it’s really not that funny.

That’s not to say that this is a bad film, it just feels purposefully safe and rather bland right throughout its short runtime.  It treads a well worn path and takes no risks or detours along the journey.  It almost feels more suited for generic sit-com television at times, which is a real shame because there are moments in Keeping With The Steins that suggest we could have got so much more here.

As for those in front of the camera, it’s hard to find fault with what they provide.  Jami Gertz, Jeremy Piven and the young Daryl Sabara all handle their parts with relative ease while Garry Marshall’s Irwin turns out to be the standout and occasional scene stealer.
 
As it stands this big screen directorial debut of Scott Marshall isn’t a total waste, but it’s just not as interesting or as challenging as it what it could have (and probably should have) been.

Like the film itself this transfer can look a little dull, soft and washed out at times, but there are also moments that showcase strong, bright colours and pleasing detail.  For the most part what we get is just a little too dreary for my liking though, and a recently released comedy like this really should have more pop and vibrancy to it than this.

As you would expect the print is almost clinically clean and free from any artefacts.  The rather soft nature of the image means that film grain isn’t really noticeable and (obviously) not excessive.  I didn't notice any compression issues. 

This is a RSDL disc with the layer change coming in at 50.50.  Taking place during a scene transition it’s a pretty flawless change.

Overall, this transfer is good without being spectacular.

What we have here is the sort of 5.1 track that neither stands out nor disappoints.  Dialogue is clean, clear and easy to understand while the original music of John Debney is pleasingly strong and features excellent fidelity, but remains unremarkable and rather cookie-cutter.

Being dialogue driven the overwhelming majority of this film takes place in the front soundstage, with the surrounds and subwoofer only used sparingly.

Overall, Keeping Up With The Steins sounds fine but isn’t exactly what you’d call demo material.

DELETED SCENES (7.24)

A collection of six scenes that were removed from the finished film.  While most of these add little to proceedings, included here is an extended ending that helps to wrap up a few of the characters quite nicely.

Selectable individually or in total, as well as with or without commentary from director Scott Marshall and writer/producer Mark Zakarin.

KEEPING UP WITH THE STEINS: BEHIND THE SCENES (8.25)

Director Scott Marshall starts us off and speaks enthusiastically about his film concentrating on the story and character aspects as well as mentioning budgetary constraints while we get to see some behind the scenes moments along with cast interview snippets. 

While not especially informative, this is pretty much as good as you could hope for taking into account the very short runtime.

The video and audio presentations are good but there aren’t many extras to speak of.

A definite try before you buy.